


O westron wynde when wilt thou blow

by Fidelios_cabinet



Series: It's Annoying at the Top [2]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Coitus Interruptus, Gen, Group dynamics, Kangaroo Courts, Kent Parson tries out for Bond Villain status, Multi, Other, Where o where can my baby be, and would he make me laugh about this if he were here, bad break-ups, bad roommates, broodiness, cat rescue, cat washing, cold drizzly weather, like a family is not always as fun as it sounds, the burdens of leadership, traveling hockey teams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-24
Updated: 2016-11-24
Packaged: 2018-09-01 21:27:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8638729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fidelios_cabinet/pseuds/Fidelios_cabinet
Summary: After his first game against Jack, Kent finds a cat on the mean streets of Providence, deals out summary justice, and begins as he means to go on, only with a cat. I'd rather over-warn, just as I'd rather over-rate, so here goes: Kent and several of the Aces interrupt a teammate having sex, with disruptive intent. Descriptions of the act would win the minimal sexual content prize of the year. No one is injured; the original act was consensual, and no one takes gross advantage of the situation to exploit vulnerable people. Because the sexual content is mostly by reference, this may be best classed as gen, but if you think I should change that I'll listen willingly.





	

Kent Parson stood on the sidewalk in Providence and felt the fine rain on his face. There was probably a poem about that somewhere, but he’d never been big on literature classes in school, either in French or English.

The game was done, the first game, a game played 6 years later than anyone had expected back when they’d won the Memorial Cup, and if the victory was a point scored against Jack, it was a very small consolation. He’d managed to eat alone afterward—he had not been tempted at all to offer to meet Jack for dinner, although he knew several of his teammates expected him to, and would have done so themselves, if Jack had been their old liney, come to the NHL at last. For one thing, Jack was always shitty company after a loss; if he wasn’t sulking or brooding or whatever it was, he was too busy planning what to do next time to talk about anything else. For another—well, as his Grandad Parson used to say “Begin the way you mean to go on,” and he and Jack were now opponents, possibly permanently and irretrievably, and he had to get used to that.

So there he was, standing in the drizzle, contemplating poetry, feeling melancholic, and getting ready to walk back to his hotel to settle dinner (fancy artisanal pizza was healthy, surely, if he’d had a salad alongside?), and there was a cat. He’d taken it for a piece of trash, some clump of wet, wadded-up newspaper where it crouched on the sidewalk staring at him, even though his eye had been caught by the movement when it crawled out of the storm drain. It might have been intended as a baleful stare, but it gave Kent the feeling the cat was pretty sure he was under suspicion as the cat’s version of a serial killer.

He crouched down on the sidewalk and chirped at the cat, careful to look past it and not at it. The draggled creature stared back and unleashed its most dangerous weapon—the silent meow. He chirped again, and the cat began to edge towards him, finally getting close enough for one of the fastest men in the NHL to snag it. Other than stiffening, the cat made little protest, and Kent thought “Stray, not feral,” as he looked it over.

While Kent looked at the cat, the cat looked back, like the abyss, only fuzzier, and smelling like something that was better acquainted with dumpsters than a Hugo Boss suit needed to get close to. He stood up and looked around; there was a drugstore close by, and he wrapped the cat in his oversized scarf (not your Baba’s shawl, just a big scarf, fuck you very much, Korolev) and headed towards the storefront.

After a very few minutes and a disapproving glare from the cashier (CVS’s corporate policy on late-night visits from hockey players was apparently negative; surely there could be no objection to cats), he had acquired several cans of cat food and some basic cat care items, and dropped more money than anyone who’d never grocery-shopped in a drugstore would have expected. He headed out through the drizzle with his flimsy plastic bags and a revolting armload of cat wrapped in what had been an expensive cashmere scarf (not your Mummo’s shawl, thanks so much, Viertanen).

They made it to the hotel safely enough. He could feel the cat purring through his coat and the scarf (Crisse, not your Mémé’s shawl, Bourgogne), whether in pleasure or fear he wasn’t certain; the place was busy enough that no one in the lobby was paying attention to him, though. Next came the elevator. Blessedly, he was alone there with the disgusting creature huddled up in his scarf (not your Nonna’s shawl, Amsler, shut the fuck up). He managed to wrestle out his key card without dropping either his purchases or the pathetic little monster still purring inside his scarf (no, not your Mormor’s shawl, either, Albinson, but thanks for your contribution to this discussion), and made it to the bathroom and put everything on the counter.

In good light the cat looked even worse than it had on the sidewalk. A bath was in order, but Kent had been involved in negotiations long enough—and had been a team captain even longer—so he knew when to lead with the pluses. He took out a can of cat food—one of the tiny, desperately expensive ones, since he didn’t want things made worse by a starved cat puking on him—and opened it. The cat sat frozen for a moment, and then lunged for the food. “I’m glad you like that, cat”, he said. “because I’m betting this next part won’t go over as well.” He shed his coat, closed the bathroom door, dug out the overpriced bottle of cat shampoo (optimistically labeled as destroying fleas) and grabbed a towel, as well as one of the coffee mugs the hotel provided.

It could have been worse. He’d kept his shirt on to limit the inevitable claw wounds, and he hadn’t been bitten, and a lot of fleas had been drowned, even if they weren’t actually poisoned. The cat smelled a lot better, and the sink drain was a perforated plate so the loose hair and mats hadn’t clogged things up. He wrapped the cat up in a towel—his scarf (not your Oma’s shawl, Lauwers, would you care to go back to Reno?) had been through enough—just as someone knocked on his door.

Cat cradled like a baby, he opened the door to find Chevalier leaning on the doorframe. “I’m locked out, Parse.”

“If your key card’s not working, Chevy, you need to find Aunt Wally.”

“The card’s fine. That hoser Milton put the night latch up.” Chevy bit his lip and glanced down the hall. “I don’t think he’s alone in there. It might be just as well if we didn’t get the Sergeant-Major involved.” Kent might not be most people’s idea of an adult authority figure, but he was enough of one to embarrass a twenty-year-old discussing someone’s sex life. Unwilling to meet Kent’s eye for long, Chevy glanced down and saw the cat.

Before Chevy could say anything, Kent said “Meet my son, Kent Junior. I found him abandoned by his mother, the thoughtless hussy.”

“A foundling, eh?” Chevy reached out and delicately scratched the cat’s forehead. “Got his playoff beard going already, I see.”

“You knocked?” Kent asked.

“Of course. I didn’t want to yell; guys might be sleeping.” The elevator chimed, and they could hear voices.

“Go get them, unless it’s Aunt Wally, and tell them I’ve called a team meeting.”

Chevy was back in a very few minutes with half a dozen of his teammates. “Amsler says there are a few more behind them; he’s staying back to catch them.”

Kent looked at his fellow players. “Gentlemen, we have a violation of our road rules here. In addition to being unable to handle a face-off, Milton is unmindful of his duty as a roommate. He’s bolted the door on Chevy here, and he does not appear to be alone.”

Amsler and his stragglers stuck their heads in the door. “What’s up?”

“Come and join the rest of the kangaroos,” Viertanen said.

“Kangaroos?”

“We’re passing summary judgment on a fellow player, here. It’s a kangaroo court, and we’re the kangaroos.”

Amsler looked as if he wanted to dispute his identity as a marsupial, but remembered in time that arguing with a goalie never pays, and refocused on the essential point. “Who fucked up?”

“In addition to being lazy, marginally competent, and lacking in his understanding of personal hygiene,” Kent said, “Mr. Milton is an inconsiderate roommate, and we’re going to deal with that.”

Viertanen swung his takeout bag idly. “You know, my room connects. We had the doors open earlier.”

“I shut ours before I left,” said Chevy, “but I didn’t bolt it.”

“If you could check?” Kent asked, and Viertanen nodded and slipped out. “Gentlemen, fill your ice buckets up, and then top them off with water. See if anyone else is in the mood for good order and discipline. And move quietly.” He waved Chevy towards his own ice bucket, and headed out after his troops, cat still in his arms.

Gertsen, Amsler’s roommate, was standing in his doorway, phone at his ear as he watched the parade down the hall to the ice machine. “Hold on, honey, I have to talk to your Uncle Kent.” He gestured towards the ice seekers. “What gives, Parse?”

“Behavior issues. Be prepared to convene court when we get home; I hereby appoint myself special prosecutor. Milton’s been a bad, bad boy.”

“OK. Anything I can do?” Kent knew Gertie didn’t want to hang up on his daughter.

“Keep an eye out for Aunt Wally, and distract her with a bullshit question or something. Like can we fly some friends of Kirsten’s back after the Calgary game.”

“That would actually be pretty cool; she’d like that. Is that a cat?”

“Yes. Found him on the street coming back from dinner. He didn’t look like he’d been claimed.”

“Seems pretty friendly, though. Let me get a picture for Kirsten.” He aimed his phone at the cat and took a couple of shots. “Guess what, honey, your Uncle Kent found a cat. I’ll send you a picture, OK?” The team’s Fine Master leaned against the door, and nodded at Kent, who moved on to Viertanen’s door.

All things considered, they’d been pretty quiet, but then, the prospect of drenching an unpopular teammate’s amours had to be pretty appealing to them. After all, no one was allowed to bring company back to their rooms—the team paid for them, and the team’s rules were plain and firm, and strictly enforced. If you found someone to fool around with, you went and booked your own room for the purpose, or faced the penalty if you got caught—and you never, ever pulled this on your roommate without warning. Your roomie needed rest even more than you needed to get laid; you’d be back in the rich hunting grounds of Vegas soon enough, so road sex wasn’t essential to your sanity. If you thought it was, you were welcome to pay for a room on your own, on another floor, away from management’s notice.

Viertanen waited, hand on the handle of the connecting door. “Surround the bed,” Kent said, “wait until my signal, and no pictures.”

They could probably have entered to “The Stars and Stripes Forever” and not got the attention of Milton and his companions, who had deployed themselves in an arrangement that Viertanen later compared to the Phoenician letter _alef_ , and made Kent’s neck hurt just to look at. The reaction to the sudden cascade of ice and cold water was immediate and, to Kent at least, quite satisfying. He hadn’t thought to tell anyone to make sure Milton and company were silenced, but hands went over mouths as soon as they were disengaged.

“Good evening,” he said. The cat squirmed in his arms, so he shifted it into a more upright position, and began rubbing its ears. “Milton, we’ll deal with you later. Ladies, you have five minutes to find your clothes and get them on. We’ll let you have the privacy of the bathroom for that. You’ll be provided with transportation home. If you don’t move now, we’ll file a complaint for trespassing and soliciting.”

“You wouldn’t—” one of the girls began.

“I absolutely would,” Kent assured her. “This is not Mr. Milton’s room; this is the room his employer booked and paid for, for the use of Mr. Milton and his roommate. The rules are the same for all of us: no guests without advance permission and arrangement with the management. He really should have spent the money for a room on another floor. I’m sure his roommate would have preferred Milton’s absence to his company by now.” He tickled the cat under the chin. “Start moving or get ready to explain things to your mothers.”

They moved. There was some ogling, of course, but not a man moved otherwise. Kent wondered briefly if this was a demonstration of a basic grasp of consent, or if no one wanted to be sleazy enough to express an interest in Milton’s sloppy seconds in front of anyone else.

“They were in my bed,” said Chevy.

“Well, now it’s Milton’s bed,” said Buff. “If he doesn’t care for the state of it, he can sleep on the floor.”

Kent slipped the night latch back into place and eased to door open a crack. He could hear Gertie talking to Aunt Wally out in the hall. “Someone get them into a cab; we’ll add that to his fine later on. Don’t leave until I get Aunt Wally out of here.”  
He opened the door and slid out. “Aunt Wally! I was hoping you were still up.” He walked down to Gertie’s door, where the defenseman was talking to the travelling secretary.

She looked at him, the pleasant expression she’d had on her face while talking to Gertie about his kids fading slightly. “Mr. Parson, I don’t believe you had a cat earlier in the day.”

“No, I did not.” Better to head straight into it, he decided. “I found him coming back from dinner. I’d like to see about taking him home.”

The cat blinked up at her. Kent thought it was a pretty charming blink, and so did Gertie, who was maneuvering his phone for another photo, but Aunt Wally appeared unimpressed. Maybe she was a dog person. Or maybe having Kent complicate her life with unplanned felines was not endearing him to her. Probably not endearing him to her. Almost certainly not endearing him to her.

“A stray?” she asked.

“Pretty much abandoned, as far as I could tell,” Kent told her. He began walking back down the hall towards his own room: Aunt Wally’s was even closer to the elevators, so surely she’d have been planning to head that way herself.

“And if it turns out to be someone’s lost pet?”

“Then he’s been lost for a while.”

She looked at the cat, her lips pursed. “I’ll have Joey see to things tomorrow morning. We’re taking the bus to Boston; he can catch up with us there.”

“Let me know what the damage comes to.” Kent was pretty sure Aunt Wally’s plans included a trip past a vet, besides the obvious cat carrier. He figured he’d be finding a way to make this up to Joey at Christmas, but the kid was still excited enough about being one of Aunt Wally’s assistants that random cats were probably not going to take the shine off things at this point.

“We’ll get receipts,” she promised him; Kent was pretty sure that was a promise and not a threat. “Is there a problem with Milton or Chevalier?”

“Milton’s feeling a little off; I don’t think it’s anything major, but Chevy will keep an eye on him,” he assured her.

“I hope it’s nothing catching,” she said.

“Don’t we all,” Kent said, which was not at all mendacious. He said goodnight to her at his door, and watched as she kept moving towards her own, only looking back when he’d seen her go inside. He saw Buff stick his head out, and then Schoenwasser slipped out the door and began shepherding Milton’s visitors to the fire stairs at the far end of the hall. Once that door had closed behind them, the others began to slip out of the room, one by one. Buff left last, and ambled down towards Kent.

“How’d it go?” Kent asked.

“Fine so far,” Buff said. “The girls are still miffed, but I told them this wasn’t about them.”

“Bet that went over well,” Kent said.

Buff waggled his hand back and forth. “I don’t think they’re serious puck bunnies, because it had never occurred to them there could be a reason why anyone would object to Milton getting his ashes hauled in a room paid for by his team, without clearing it with his roommate first. I got a real rich-kid-privilege vibe off one of them, to be honest.” He rolled his eyes just a bit. “We let Wash take them down; he’s not too likely to get distracted between here and the exit.” He looked down at the cat, who was now sitting with his front paws on Kent’s shoulder and looking around with interest. “The cat’s a nice touch; it gave you a real Bond villain look when you were reading them the riot act.”

“I thought that was white cats,” Kent said.

“Was it?” Buff said. “I just remember the scar, which you are missing, although your sneer is high-quality. You only needed to say ‘No, Mr. Milton, I expect you to die—of blue balls!’” He reached out and scratched the cat behind one ear. “It’s late, so I’m not going to ask where the cat came from, or if he’s going to be taking up Milton’s place in the line, although he might be an improvement there.” He headed back to the room he shared with Jeff, and slipped inside.

Kent looked down at the cat. “Ready to call it a night? Or do you want a little more to eat first? Whichever, I’m putting you down, because you weigh more than any cat as skinny as you should.”

He got ready for bed—a hot bath, with the smelly green bath salts his Aunt Agnes had fixed him up with, years ago, and then made a nest of the used towels on the bathroom floor (he had already selected the ON position for the heated floor function, much to the cat’s satisfaction). He filled the empty cat food can with water, and carefully shut the door behind him.  
Sometime between then and daylight, the cat figured out the door handle, because Kent woke up to a weight between his feet, a weight that complained when he moved to get up. Luckily, the cat had decided the bathtub was the best available substitute for adequate toilet facilities, so their budding relationship wasn’t ruined by Kent stepping on a nice fresh cat turd; a new, larger can of cat food was really cementing things when Joey showed up.

“I found a vet over at The Providence Center,” he told Kent, “and when the pet store opens I’ll get a carrier. Gosh, that’s a big cat.”

“It’s not all fur, either,” Kent said. He picked up his wallet. “Let me give you some cash for all that; it’ll be easier than letting the office sort it out back in Vegas.”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that, Mr. Parson. Ms. Wallace gave me money for everything…”

Kent had given up on telling the kid (who was almost the same age he was, once you allowed for college and the time he’d spent on his mission) to call him Kent, or even Parse, so he just shoved the wad of per diem money at Joey and said “Hang onto hers in case things go over what I’ve given you; I have no idea what all you’ll run into.”

“Well, all right then,” Joey said, and pocketed the cash. “I’ll keep receipts and everything. Ms. Wallace said to talk to the vet about travel paperwork, if we need to take him up to Toronto.” He waited until the cat paused his post-prandial grooming for a moment, and picked him up. “Come on, Big Fella, you and I are going to hang out for a while.” Kent thanked him and closed the door behind him.

 

Ever since his rookie year, Kent had made a rule: he could bring home a souvenir from a city only if they’d had a win. It didn’t matter whether it was a refrigerator magnet or a leaf from the riverfront park in St. Louis (that had been a spectacular white oak leaf, blended between red and dark green like a tourmaline.) No win, no reminder, and he couldn’t go and look for one; he had to come across them. The cat was out of the ordinary as these went, but then, this wasn’t an ordinary victory. And he had begun as he meant to go on. He and Jack weren’t teammates; whatever else they were wan’t his problem for now.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. The poem Kent is vaguely remembers is this one:  
> Westron wynde, when wylt thow blow  
> The smalle rayne downe can rayne?  
> Cryst yf my love were in my armys  
> And I yn my bed agayne!  
> which made no sense to him when he was 16 or so, even when Jack read it aloud to him, pointing out that old-fashioned English made as much sense as modern English, if you’d just listen to it, Kenny. It's been stuck in the back of his head since then, though. 
> 
> 2\. Really, it is a useful scarf--big enough to be a blanket on the plane, but it can scrunch down to go around his neck, or fold up to fit easily into your bag. His teammates chirped Kent relentlessly after his youngest sister gave it to him for Christmas, but they all went and got their own. “Baba” and the rest are all “Grandma” in Russian, Finnish, Québécois, Swiss Italian, Swedish, and Dutch. To be fair, it is a shawl, no matter what Kent says. 
> 
> 3\. [Cats!](http://petupon.com/top-15-maine-coon-cat-images); A specific cat, with more [cats here](http://www.iizcat.com/post/3979/This-man-photographs-Maine-Coon-cats-and-makes-them-look-like-majestic-mythical-beasts-Gallery-).  
> Personally I see Kit Purrson as a gray tabby, without any white, but your mileage may vary. These links lead to pictures of various fine-looking Maine Coons, from which you may form your own headcanon. Please note that the Maine Coon breed is not flat-faced like a Persian; the closest European match is the Norwegian Forest Cat, which is a smaller breed. They can keep growing until they’re two, and are really huge cats; Kit will probably become big enough to stand up and grab Kent’s belt buckle when he feels in need of attention. There will be a lot of cat hair. 
> 
> 4\. Aunt Wally [more formally, Sergeant-Major Margaret Wallace, USA(ret.)] is the Aces’ Traveling Secretary; she handles travel and lodging arrangements, passes out the per diem money for the team and staff, and deals with Shit That Happens, whether it’s random cats collected by the team captain, or calls from Night Court for bail money, or any other little thing that might come up. Typically, Traveling Secretaries in professional sports have been men, but Ms. Wallace spent 30 years in the army, with a specialty in transportation and logistics, and not much can catch her flatfooted. Not even hockey players; she’s had 30 years’ worth of second lieutenants and buck privates to deal with, and the players aren’t allowed weapons, at least not off the ice.
> 
> 5\. Kangaroo courts are a regular feature of many sports teams. They can function as obnoxious nuisances, or as a method to resolve the annoying things people do that drive the people stuck working with them up the wall. Or both, depending on what’s needed. Usually there’s a system of fines, and the Fine Master is in charge of collecting the fines, and overseeing the court. You get a defense representative, if you’re called before the bench. Different teams do different things with their fines—some use them as tips for the staff (trainers, and so on), while others subsidize an end of the year party. You can google for more, if you’re curious. 
> 
> 6\. Kent's and Buff’s explanation of room arrangements is essentially correct, pre the latest NHL CBA. (Thanks, @stumblebee!) We'll assume this universe has slight differences in the CBA. Someone back in Las Vegas books a block of rooms for the team and staff, typically all on one floor, for convenience’s sake. The team pays for everything, and can restrict how the rooms are used. In many cases, depending on the hotel space available, in order to have a room to yourself, you either need to be a veteran player (so you have enough clout when your agent negotiates for this), the team captain (who may need privacy to talk to people who need his advice and counsel), or a goalie (they’re weird and most teams are happy to leave them in peace). Teams don’t do this just because management is too cheap to spring for separate rooms; there are advantages to having a buddy system in place for your players. There’s usually some latitude in selecting roommates, although a veteran will often have a rookie to keep an eye on. Chevalier has Milton because no one wants to deal with Milton and Chevy’s too junior himself to refuse.
> 
> 7\. Per diem money covers food and other expenses (besides lodging, which has already been covered) for players and staff. Currently, in the NHL, players get a little over $100/day, which can be decreased depending on what time they leave for the road trip, and when they return.
> 
> I'll bet you guys didn't really care about most of this, did you? Because Kent + cat is the most important part.


End file.
